‘Include specially-abled students in regular schooling’

Alvi wants educational institutions equipped with assistive infrastructure

ISLAMABAD:

Specially-abled students must be made to feel welcome and ‘included’ in the regular education system of the country by making institutions friendly towards them by equipping them with the required assistive infrastructures and technologies.

This was stated by President Dr Arif Alvi on Thursday while addressing an event on “Improving Access to Assistive Technology” at the Aiwan-e-Sadr. The event was held in connection with the International Day for Persons with Disabilities. The event had been organised by the Baitul Mal, the World Health Organization and the federal human rights ministry.

President Alvi said that through inclusive education, specially-abled children can be acquainted with routine life and challenges, which they cannot learn in an isolated atmosphere.

He added that with a few modifications and improvements in the existing infrastructure, students who are either hearing, visually or physically-impaired, can easily be amalgamated with fully capable children.

Launching an inclusive education initiative, Dr Alvi suggested that even children who are suffering from autism and other impairments can also join the same schools after some training. He hoped that an ongoing survey under the Ehsaas Programme will provide exact data of specially-abled people in the country to help the government devise targeted policies for facilitating such students and bring them into the mainstreaming. In this regard, he said that there is a need to grade disabilities so that the government can devise better policies to serve them, especially those who suffer from multiple disabilities.

The president also endorsed a call from the federal human rights minister on opting for a rights-based approach instead of social welfare for specially-abled people. Dr Alvi also strongly advised changing the societal approach towards specially-abled people to ensure their dignity.

In this regard, Dr Alvi said that he has asked all 26 universities falling under his purview to provide free education to specially-abled children.

In the future, he said that approval of layout plans for commercial buildings will be subject to the provision of ramps and toilets; moreover, all 235 parks and in Islamabad will develop the requisite facilities and existing buildings will be asked to install movable ramps. Earlier, Federal Human Rights Minister Dr Shireen Mazari called for mainstreaming specially-abled people. She deplored the absence of ramps and washrooms for specially-abled people in commercial and official buildings, even prisons.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2020.